It is often illuminating to look at artistic movements in the context of the historical period in which they developed. Europe during the first world war is a perennial theme in secondary school History, and the art coming out of Germany during that period is a really interesting insight into a world of moral and emotional turmoil.
When looking at the poetry of Wilfred Owen / Rupert Brooke / Siegfried Sassoon, introduce some of the expressionistic German poetry as a point of comparison, there's an example below:
Yielding clod lulls iron off to sleep
bloods clot the patches where they oozed
rusts crumble
fleshes slime
sucking lusts around decay.
Murder on murder blinks
in childish eyes.
- August Stramm 1915
This poem could be the stimulus for empathetic writing from the battlefield, as well as introducing a German perspective on the horrors of the war. This could also include some German expressionist painting – both of the battlefield and German life during the period. Some good ones to project would be Beckmann's The Night and Dix's Assault Under Gas, Flanders and Skull. It is interesting to see how the new levels of savagery and inhumanity during that period gave rise to new forms of artistic expression. It might be useful to compare German Romantic art of the nineteenth century, with its idealised representations of the natural world and religious subjects, such as Joseph von Fuhrich's Jacob Encountering Rachel to see the effect of the War on visual art.
Students could create their own digital story presentation about World War One using simple video editing software. This could include adding voice-over tracks to photographs and paintings from the period. Students could read examples of WW1 poetry over their images, or write their own poems or diary entries from the POV of a nurse, soldier in the trenches, General etc. This could also be done in the style of a news reel, either with sound or with silent movie titles and a choice of dramatic music and sound effects.
The art of the First World War could be contrasted with the propaganda of the period. In addition to early recruitment adverts, this film from the Scottish Screen Archive, Glasgow's Yesterdays can be used:
Input it into editing software and record a new soundtrack, this could be students giving context and information about troop recruitment, or a more artistic exercise, such as dramatised readings of wartime letters and diaries or poetry.
Compare this early recruitment propaganda with the most recent adverts by the Ministry of Defence in terms of the techniques used
